6 November 2012 Come Mr. Taliban

Voter suppression comes in many forms:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171030/tea-party-group-blocks-florida-voters-stops-water-handouts-polls?fb_source=feed_opengraph&ref=feed_open_graph&fb_actio

Tea Party Group Blocks Florida Voters, Stops Water Handouts at Polls

This is a hateful action conceived of and executed by a political group that is founded in and sustained by racism and hatred. 

Equally hateful, intimidation efforts by the NBPP (New Black Panther Party) placing squads of physically intimidating men at the entrance to polling places. 

          The nature of politics today is so divisive that no trust exists among the body politic.  The past year has been a concerted effort by the GOP/teavangelist to disenfranchise voters in all the minority blocs that typically vote for Democratic candidates.  The demand that all voters show photo ID issued by a state approved agency has been proven to be costly and difficult for many minority citizens.  Further complicating the legal situation, some states have, under the guise of financial hardship, closed agencies that might issue the necessary ID cards, requiring that applicants travel through several counties on a restricted number of days. 

          While I have no ethical problem with a universal ID card which can be used to license driving, identify students, serve as a social security gateway, and be used as a passport, such a card, if used, must be readily available, provided by the national government, and secure enough in assignment and issue that it cannot be used to hack any other national network. 

          I also have no problem with our ID being issued by the nation rather than the various states.  Such a card could be used to vote any place in the nation, alleviating some of the storm-related problems we are dealing with now. 

          There are many people who would object to national photo ID documents until they are proposed for resident non-citizens entering the U.S.  The full-face veil worn by many Muslim women enrages the teavangelist mobs that fear terrorism at every turn in the road. 

          The difficulties we are encountering in our electoral process are partly due to the sheer number of voters involved in the process and the looming statistical margins of error that render even the most exacting procedures error-ridden.  Mix in the ease of spoofing an electronic voting machine by inserting malevolent code under the guise of repairs or routine maintenance, and the electoral process becomes less and less reliable.  Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State ordered an unknown “software patch to be installed in many of the machines used in today’s election. Lawsuits are pending.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505124_162-57545531/ohio-faces-controversy-over-voting-machines-update/

          The machines we used last week in Jonesborough TN left no paper trail that I could see and required an election official to insert a key card into the machine before I could use it.  Am I paranoid?  Perhaps.  However the electoral process is now another thing that we, as a nation, were once able to point to with pride.  Now the vaunted “American Exceptionalism” has left our shores.  Backward Afghanistan can carry out a less error-laden election if they wish. 

          Good luck to us all.  Tonight may well be the beginning of a theocratic plutocracy where once the Democratic republic known as America held sway.

It promises to be a long night watching the returns come in.

Day light come and me want to go home!